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Working in the kitchen of Madison’s esteemed fine dining emporium L’Etoile was just the career trajectory Ariel Welch wanted to be on. She had moved to one of this state’s foodie destinations from Beaver Dam, where she’d been living with her parents and working at a coffee shop.
At L’Etoile, she was doing savory cooking, rotating among stations, as is customary. “They were going to move me to fish, and I thought, ‘I do not want to work the fish station,’” she laughs. “I really want to get into pastry.”
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And that was the start of it. Welch began her training in the pastry station at L’Etoile and its sister restaurant Graze, relocating to Milwaukee in 2016 when her then boyfriend took a job at the former Red Light Ramen.
That eventually led Welch to a pastry position at Ardent, where she began to perfect her canelé, an exquisite little bundt-shaped French pastry, crusty and caramelized on the outside, moist and custardy inside.
“I just love the elegance of it,” she says. At Birch since last year, Welch is matching the quiet brilliance of the savory menu with refreshing granitas; crispy, cloudlike meringues; and her adored canelés.
The canelé has a reputation for being difficult – “intimidating,” Ariel Welch puts it. It doesn’t adapt well to baking in anything other than the traditional copper canelé mold, coated with beeswax and clarified butter to prevent sticking.
What is your favorite dessert from a restaurant?
Carrot cake. Whenever I get a new cookbook, that’s what I always test out – their carrot cake.
Do you have a pastry chef mentor?
Kyra [Farkas] from Oriole [a 2-Michelin-star restaurant in Chicago].
Which flavors or ingredients are you most drawn to?
I love holy basil and chocolate together. For Christmas, I always make a basil brownie with a chocolate ganache.
What’s your favorite candy?
Candy corn! I wait for to go on sale after Halloween so it’s dirt cheap. Also, Butterfingers.
Do you have a hobby outside of baking?
I go thrifting a lot. My goal is to open an online resale of vintage stuff. Like, I collect a lot of china, cake stands and really nice lingerie.
